This week on MovieJawn, we are celebrating our favorite movies that turned 25 this year. All week long we are going to Party Like It’s 1999!

by Fiona Underhill, Staff Writer

1999 deserves its reputation as one of the strongest years in movie history–with even the biggest blockbusters, such as The Matrix and The Phantom Menace, being groundbreaking in their own ways. And if you go to the total opposite end of the budget spectrum, you will find the equally innovative The Blair Witch Project which changed the horror genre forever. But not every smaller, independent film released in 1999 managed to break through to the wider zeitgeist as impressively as the movie that launched the found-footage horror genre. So, I’m here to put a spotlight on one of the least-seen and most underrated films released that year: Michael Winterbottom’s Wonderland.

British director Michael Winterbottom is best-known for one of the best (and funniest) movie franchises of all time – The Trip (which had four entries released between 2010 and 2020). He has frequently collaborated with Steve Coogan outside of The Trip, in the likes of 24 Hour Party People and Tristram Shandy. Other notable works include the excellent (but exceedingly bleak) Thomas Hardy adaptation Jude (starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet), A Mighty Heart (starring Angelina Jolie) and Dev Patel’s heart-pumping Bond audition The Wedding Guest.

In 1999’s modern, South London-set Wonderland, Winterbottom assembled some of the best of British acting talent of the time, a strong ensemble of mostly working class actors, which we unfortunately rarely see in the British cinema of today. Wonderland centers around three sisters–Nadia (played by Gina McKee, born in Durham in the north of England to a coal miner), Debbie (played by Scottish actress Shirley Henderson), and Molly (played by Canadian actress Molly Parker). Ian Hart (from Liverpool) plays Dan, the father of Debbie’s son, John Simm (from Leeds) plays Eddie, Molly’s husband and father of her unborn child, and Irish actor Stuart Townsend plays Tim, someone that Nadia meets through her active dating life. Bradford-born actor Enzo Cilenti plays the sisters’ estranged brother Darren. Kika Markham and Jack Shepherd (who are also both from the North of England) play their parents–Eileen and Bill. It’s notable that the ensemble cast is almost entirely made up of actors who are either Scottish, Irish or from the North of England, when British acting is unfortunately now so massively dominated by those who are privately-educated and mainly from London and the home counties.

If there is one main character in Wonderland, it is probably McKee’s Nadia, and she embodies the film’s central theme of loneliness within a big city. Despite still being married, her parents are also desperately unhappy and lonely, and share an unspoken grief over the loss of their son Darren, who no longer talks to them. Eddie is anxious about the impending birth of his first child, and unhappy in his job, which leads Molly to also be stressed and worried. The most optimistic and happy-go-lucky character is Debbie, a hairdresser who has fun casual one-night-stands with various different men. Her 11-year-old son Jack appears to have absorbed some of the loneliness and anxiety from his wider family, as he is quieter and more morose than his mother.

Although there is a sadness permeating much of Wonderland, there are also plenty of moments of hope and optimism, and it builds to a heart-warming finale. The family end up coming together for the birth of Molly’s baby, who Eddie is determined to name Alice from the Wonderland of the title. It’s implied that Wonderland is London, and this really is one of the best London-set films of all time, and certainly of the 1990s. It holds up alongside Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette, Mike Leigh’s Naked or Patrice Chereau’s Intimacy in depicting poorer characters struggling with modern life and relationships, and feeling lost within a vast city that doesn’t treat them with kindness.

The biggest strength of Wonderland which prevents the film from becoming too filled with despair is Michael Nyman’s absolutely beautiful, heart-shattering score. Wonderland is Nyman’s favorite of his own scores, and Winterbottom loved it so much, he has re-used some of the tracks for The Trip. Each character gets their own motif, with husband-and-wife Molly and Eddie’s tracks being especially wistful and full of longing. Dan and Jack (who are father-and-son) have paired tracks, with Dan’s a more upbeat, faster-paced and propulsive version of Jack’s, which is more melancholy at the start. Jack’s track is longer and more complex than his father’s, which definitely fits their characters.

Wonderland is unfortunately hard to come by now and it’s fortunate that I still have my DVD copy (all hail physical media), but if you have to way to seek it out, I strongly urge you to do so. Michael Winterbottom unfortunately doesn’t get the accolades he should do, even in the UK, and he deserves them for the masterpiece that is The Trip at the very least. His lesser-known work, such as Jude and Wonderland from the ‘90s, and The Wedding Guest more recently, are all well worth your time. I clearly highly regard his work across the board, but Wonderland is my favorite Winterbottom because the Nyman score really elevates it to something singularly special, and the ensemble of working class character actors are such a joy to spend time with. It’s a shame that it now seems like a relic of a different era, when so many working class actors had the opportunity to collaborate in something of this quality. The characters are flawed and complex, the script gives them depth and humanity, and is extremely empathetic to these recognizable, real people. Wonderland truly is a wonder.